A Citizen’s Guide to Greece 2015
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Foreign media and press freedom in Greece
Posted February 1, 2013 by Politis
A few weeks ago the Dukakis Center hosted Reuters investigative journalist Stephen Grey, whose articles on cronyism and corruption in the Greek banking sector roused the ire of local media outlets, to the extent that he was accused of being on the vanguard of a new Frankish invasion. Politis has commented on more than once […]
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World Press Freedom Day
Posted May 15, 2013 by Politis
“Living in silence is not living, in any corner of the planet. Living and remaining silent about how the corrupt, crime and impunity continue to take ahold of my country is also to die. Without freedom of expression, justice and democracy are not possible.” — Anabel Hernández, Mexican investigative journalist living under 24 hour police […]
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Women win the right to vote in Greece
Posted May 28, 2013 by Politis
The right to vote for and stand as candidate in legislative and municipal elections for women was secured on 28 May, 1952, through law 2159, which gave women equal rights to men. Women did not vote in the elections of November of that year, however, because the electoral rolls had not been yet been brought […]
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She faces the music
Posted May 12, 2013 by M P
By Maria Patsarika “She faces the music” – I can’t think of a better way to express my own thoughts about Kiki Dimoula, a great (the greatest?) poet of our times, and the uproar that her apparently xenophobic public comments caused. My inital reaction was surprise and disappointment in her. Greek intellectuals appear perplexed, lacking […]
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The tyranny of little things
Posted January 14, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Nikos Konstandaras Our country bears many great wounds, which, over the years, brought us to the point of bankruptcy, ridicule and insecurity. But however great the problems which stem from the corruption and incompetence of our political elite and state machinery, from the chaos of the public sector, from the lack of national strategy, […]
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Do we want our politics to be nimble?
Posted August 3, 2014 by Politis
In an article published this past weekend on TechCrunch, Michael Papay and David Timby ask what politics cannot work at the swift pace that contemporary business, aided by developments in information technology, can. In this high political season (the 2014 mid-term elections) “there’s not much constructive debate,” they lament, “and political gridlock has become the […]
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Ecosystem threat part and parcel of civic irresponsibility
Posted December 11, 2013 by M P
By Maria Patsarika Browsing a Sunday paper and a series of depressing articles on politics, one article made me think of the word “crisis” on a broader eco-systemic level, and also ponder the distressing consequences of our collective ignorance. Permissions for gold mining in Chalkidiki and protesters’ prosecutions are scandalous according to George Triantafyllidis, lecturer […]
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A public service announcement for owners of uninsured vehicles
Posted April 6, 2013 by Politis
By Fotinie Efstratiadou A law pertaining to uninsured vehicles has recently been passed in the Greek Parliament and will enter into force on April 15, 2013. The law concerns owners of vehicles that will be found to be uninsured through database cross examinations conducted by the National Information Systems of the Greek Ministry of Economy, […]
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Is there an EU education gap?
Posted May 8, 2013 by Politis
Anders Aslund, the author of a report on the root causes of the eurozone crisis published on the website of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, argues that “[t]he most overlooked common problem of the four Southern European countries—Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece—is that they are all hampered by little education and the poor quality […]
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Football activism
Posted June 23, 2013 by DW
A striking scene from the Copacabana.
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Saying of the day: 6/20/13
Posted June 20, 2013 by Politis
“J’ai mal à la Grèce.” Angélique Kourounis
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New media and the future of journalism
Posted June 28, 2013 by KK
By Krysta Kalachani Let me bring to your attention a very interesting discussion (in Greek) about the new media and new types of journalism in the context ERT, as ERT was / is supposed to be. Worth watching, it tackles specifically the situation in the Greek media.
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On friendly politicians and false equality
Posted October 11, 2013 by M P
By Maria Patsarika The latest article in Kathimerini English edition by Takis Theodoropoulos makes a very good point: “The [second person] singular is the form of the collapse, which is often falsely equated with democratic equality” (free translation). Let us not be so naive as to fall for the casual manners and elusive straightforwardness that […]
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What is the public value framework?
Posted April 2, 2013 by Politis
“[T]ransparency, participation, and collaboration are best viewed as instrumental to the accomplishment of democracy in that they enable citizens to enact their various roles as citizens. That is, transparency is not an end citizens pursue for its own sake. Citizens may desire their government to be transparent, but that is largely because something else is […]
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Democracy under seige in the north
Posted June 25, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Tom McLaughlin Our first prime minster, Sir John A. Macdonald, said “A public man should have no resentments.” His seething successors demonstrate that this adage is in desperate short supply in Canadian politics today. Faithful to the partisan glue binding them to their parties, our political class is doing everything possible to diminish, demean, […]
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Could this work in Greece?
Posted March 17, 2013 by Politis
The Project on Government Oversight seeks to “provoke accountability” in the workings of the US Federal Government. About POGO Founded in 1981, POGO originally worked to expose outrageously overpriced military spending on items such as a $7,600 coffee maker and a $436 hammer. In 1990, after many successes reforming military spending, including a Pentagon spending […]
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Saying of the day: 5/27/13
Posted May 27, 2013 by Politis
“There’s a lot more optimism in the air . . . but we’re not yet through the crisis. It’s still a tough balancing act for [small and medium-sized] companies like ours. — Fotis Sousalis, Export Manager, Terra Creta
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Crisis, what crisis?
Posted October 23, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner Some years ago, when I first settled permanently in Thessaloniki, I met another ex-patriot who had been here for decades already. How long? I asked her. “Long enough to think the Greek way of doing things is the normal way,” she replied. Won’t happen to me, I thought, naively. And continued to […]
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Who wants to …?
Posted January 25, 2015 by DW
Election day is nigh upon us. With this in mind, there are three dimensions to the question I have been thinking of asking: Who wants to run, who wants to vote, and who wants to govern. In May 2014 the Dukakis Center examined an apparent inflation in the number of candidates running for local and […]
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New Media emerging
Posted April 22, 2012 by KK
By Krystallia Kalachani It is late afternoon, June 2011, the temperature in Athens is high. I am still at work giving a last look at my social media accounts before I leave for home, there is calling for a gathering in Syntagma Square, central Athens, in front of the Greek Parliament. I would be there […]